A Pilot Study Observing High Salivary Non-Secretor (se/se) Prevalence in Breast and Ovarian Cancers in Kolkata

BackgroundBreast and ovarian cancers remain major causes of illness and death in women. Secretor status determined by fucosyltransferase 2 (FUT2) gene controls the presence of ABO antigens in all bodily fluids except CSF, and prior studies suggest non-secretor status may be associated with cancer risk. Data on secretor prevalence in breast and ovarian cancers are limited. MethodsWe performed a pilot case-control study at a government medical college in Kolkata between January and June 2024. The study included 74 women: 37 patients with newly diagnosed breast (n = 23) or ovarian (n = 14) cancer and 37 healthy female blood donors. Unstimulated saliva was collected and tested for secretor status using a hemagglutination inhibition assay. Associations were tested with the chi-square test. ResultsAmong healthy controls, 78% were secretors and 22% were non-secretors. In contrast, 81% of cancer patients were non-secretors and 19% were secretors. By cancer type, non-secretor prevalence was 82.6% in breast cancer and 78.5% in ovarian cancer. The association between non-secretor status and cancer was statistically significant (p < 0.0001). ConclusionsIn this pilot study, salivary non-secretor status was much more common in women with breast or ovarian cancer than in healthy controls. The findings support larger, population-level and genetic studies to confirm whether FUT2 non-secretor status could serve as a simple, low-cost marker to identify the population at risk. Limitations include small sample size and absence of FUT2 genotyping.